


Bar at the End of the World

by Paycheckgurl



Series: Radio Kills the Video Star: Audio Codas [2]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Audio:submission, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Post-Series 03: Children of Earth (Torchwood)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28856514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paycheckgurl/pseuds/Paycheckgurl
Summary: Dr. Carlie Roberts runs into a familiar face.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Series: Radio Kills the Video Star: Audio Codas [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2116167
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Bar at the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> Months ago in the Torchwood Big Finish server we were discussing Carlie from the old Torchwood BBC Radio Drama: Submission. This fic came about because of those discussions. So massive shout out to BlipInTime (who came up with the plot for this), ThatLastDanceOfTheChances, and everyone in the server. Also shejustcalledmeafish, for inspiring me to go digging through my WIPs and find this. 
> 
> (If you’ve never listened to submission it’s not required, pretty much all you need to know is Carlie is an ex-Torchwood One marine biologist, went on a mission with Torchwood 3 that involved the submarine trip from hell, and had a massive crush on Ianto when they were at One).

Dr. Carlie Roberts almost didn’t recognize him. She almost didn’t  _ notice  _ him. 

He had the same distinctive way of dressing, and the same movie star handsome face. Other foreign patrons always stuck out in this bar, and a tall one dressed like he’d just stepped off the set of a period military drama should have taken her notice immediately. 

But this wasn’t the larger than life, ridiculous Captain who’d journeyed to the bottom of the Mariana Trench with her. He was hunched over, and despite his large frame, he looked positively  _ small.  _ He sat at the corner of the bar as far away from other patrons as possible. He didn’t come forward or offer her an (admittedly unwanted) flirt or that thousand watt cheeky smile. He just stared down into his drink. 

Carlie didn’t know him well. They’d had one adventure together, and she’d spent half of it exasperated because he kept trying terrible chat up lines, and simply refused to be professional until things got out of control. The other half of it hurt because she’d missed her chance with Ianto Jones,  _ again _ , and the entirely real possibility that he would leave her to die had been on the table. Far too much of the whole ordeal had been spent scared for her life. Scared at the thought of the complete loss of her mind and self. 

But she went on, back to here. Back to Japan to work on her research, and her days working for Torchwood finally behind her. Ianto Jones, the one that got away, finally behind her. And at least he was happy with a man that while frustrating, clearly loved him with his whole heart. 

A man that, as little as she knew him, Carlie could tell was now utterly broken. She felt herself shiver. Something was  _ wrong _ for Captain Jack Harkness to be this way. She had half an instinct not to ask. To pretend she hadn’t seen him, and put this, and Jack and Torchwood, and  _ Ianto  _ well and truly behind her where it all belonged. 

But Carlie liked knowing why things were. She liked investigating. She explored things. It was why she was a scientist. It was why Torchwood One had snatched her up. 

So despite herself, she asked “Captain Harkness? Jack? Is that you?” 

He looked up at her, still clutching his drink. Carlie wished he hadn’t. His eyes were too wide and there was nothing behind them. She stood closer. She could smell the stench of the whiskey and sake on his breath. He looked down at the drink he was nursing again. Away from her. 

_ “I’m ready to close my tab,” _ he told the bartender in broken Japanese. His American accent was thick over the words. 

“How much have you had, Captain?” she asked. 

She’d been accused of being pushy in the past. Typically, she didn’t care if it got her answers. 

“Not enough to kill me tonight,” was his answer. 

And then after a second he looked at her again. Looked at her with that frown that didn’t match his face and didn’t belong there. 

“Carlie Roberts?” 

She wondered if he really hadn’t recognized her at first, or he’d just been avoiding acknowledging her. 

“Jack?” she asked carefully. “What happened?” 

She found herself feeling more and more unsettled. Because for Jack to be here, and not in Cardiff not with his team, not with that Gwen Cooper woman, not with  _ Ianto _ ...something had to be wrong. She was sure of that much. And she was growing more and more sure that maybe she didn’t want to know the answer. 

He blinked at her. His face wearing that empty expression; there was something truly unnerving about it. 

“You didn’t hear.” 

It wasn’t a question. A statement. 

“No.” 

The bartender came by with the receipt for the drinks on his tab. Jack looked down at it, handed him a messy stack of yen, and then told him in that same shaky attempt at Japanese, that actually no, he needed one more. 

Carlie waited as Jack played with the rim of his last empty shot glass, avoiding answering her questions whatever had happened. Seemingly avoiding whatever had happened all together. 

“I’ve been traveling,” he said. “All over the world. Here. Paris. Morocco. The States. Brazil. Everywhere.” 

“Are you on sabbatical then?” 

“Something like that. More of a retirement, really.” 

“You didn’t exactly strike me as the kind that was ready to give it all up.”

He let out a mirthless little chuckle at that. “No. No, I wasn’t ready. We weren’t ready. The twenty-first century. When everything changes. And Torchwood...Torchwood was not ready.”

She thought about the latest invasion. The latest that the general public knew about, at any rate. The children of the world stopped and pointed. Their voices were used to demand their own lives. And the governments of the world came too close to giving in. Even with her UNIT contacts and her security clearances, Carlie was in the dark about how that had been stopped. As a marine biologist, even one that handled secretive UNIT projects, her colleagues had determined she didn’t need to know. And the few that did know weren’t going to tell her. 

“Torchwood. You stopped that incident with the kids,” she deduced. 

“It...it was stopped,” said Jack. 

If his eyes were empty and his expression upsettingly blank before, they somehow became even moreso. She noticed some tears began welling up at the corner of his eyes. She didn’t think it was the alcohol. 

“How?”

“Trust me. You don’t want to know.”

“A lot of my colleagues have been saying that recently. The ones from UNIT with some insider knowledge.”

“They would. And they’re not wrong.”

“And Torchwood?” 

“Like I said. It was stopped...Torchwood’s gone now.” 

“But who’s monitoring the rift? Is the rest of your team…”

If she truly had good sense she would have stopped herself. This wasn’t going to go in a good direction. But she pressed on. 

Jack took a long sip of his drink. “Gwen’s in hiding. With her husband. She’s also very pregnant at the moment. UNIT’s been monitoring the rift.”

He took another slow sip. “I tried traveling to get away. I tried to tie up the loose ends but there’s too many. And then I realized I was just...it was more about getting away than it was about the loose ends.” 

She didn’t ask the next question. The expression on her face did it for her. 

Jack stared quietly at her entirely too long. Finally he took a long breath in. “Ianto died.”

The words hurt like a stab to the chest. Even if a part of her suspected they were coming. Because not  _ Ianto _ . He’d always been so sweet and funny and intelligent. 

She’d wanted him so badly back in London, and stood by and watched as he continued to pine over Lisa, even after their first few dates hadn’t panned out. Foolishly threw herself at him with reckless abandon, only for him to fob off her advances, and pick Racheal instead. Watched as Racheal manipulated and played him while knowing she’d never hurt him the way Racheal had. And then watched as he chose Lisa again in the end, after Lisa gave him a second chance. She went years without so much as a phone call, only for that fateful call to come out of the blue when they recorded the anomaly at the bottom of the ocean. And only for her to realize that when Ianto called her this time, it was strictly professional, as his boyfriend kept shooting him little glances, and got handsy at ten thousand feet under the ocean. 

But even after all that, she still felt for him. Maybe not romantically anymore, but Ianto Jones was brave, and interesting, and kind...and so very young. So very, very young to no longer be... 

“No.” It was the only word her lips let her form. 

Jack continued to avoid her gaze. “Thames House...during the thing with the kids. They were housing representatives of the creatures involved there. We confronted them, Ianto and me, and they unleashed chemical warfare into the air.” 

Jack’s voice was thick as he spoke. First all business, trying to keep to the facts of it. Then breaking a bit as his sentences continued. Finally he sounded completely choked as he added “he died in my arms.” 

“Jack…” she began. Her first impression of Jack Harkness had not been the best. She’d immediately clocked him as arrogant and foolhardy. But that wasn’t the Jack Harkness that was in front her. This was a man that had had his whole universe ripped away from him. There was more he wasn’t telling her, she was sure. But what he’d already laid bare...he’d looked broken before he’d told her. She hadn’t realized the truth was that he was closer to shattered. 

Jack took another sip. The glass of sake was almost gone despite the way he’d been slowly nursing it. 

“You must hate me,” he said. “He would have been so much better off if I just hadn’t given in and given him that job offer. If we hadn’t been...maybe he’d still be alive.” 

There was maybe an unspoken “maybe he could have been with you”, attached to that statement, but that was not where her mind went. 

“I’m going to stop you right there, Captain Harkness,” she told him. “Because I know for a fact that he was  _ happy  _ with you. Happy with his mad job and happy with  _ you _ . He loved you. He told me that outright. You’re not doing yourself any favors by playing through that particular what if and what could have been. You’re not doing his memory any either.” 

Jack let out a laugh. A dark, sardonic laugh. “All I ever did was cause him pain. In the end he told me he loved him, told he loved me while dying in my arms, and I couldn’t even say it back. I was so fucking selfish, so fucking sure I didn’t want this to be the end, that I told him ‘don’t’. I didn’t deserve him. And he  _ definitely  _ would have been better off with someone else.  _ Anyone  _ else.” 

Carlie matched that sardonic laugh with one of her own. “Oh bullshit.” 

Jack looked as if he was going to cut her off, but she pressed on. “Do you know what we talked about? When You and Gwen were out in the dive suits? He was happy. He was so  _ fucking  _ happy.” Carlie wasn’t usually one to succumb to profanity, but if ever there were a situation that called for it, this was it. “With Torchwood, but especially with  _ you.  _ And for fuck’s sake Jack. He knew. He loved you. And you damn well know he knew you loved him too. Look at yourself. If you didn’t would you be  _ here _ ? In this sad little dive bar on the other side of the world, running away from everything and everyone?”

“I…”

“If Ianto were here right now, he’d be livid. Not because you deserve it, or that he’d blamed you, or whatever cock and bull you cooked up, but because you somehow convinced yourself that he wasn’t happy. He knew that one day you’d have to let him go because of...how things are for you. And he didn’t want that for you. That’s the very thing he said he didn’t want. For goodness sakes Jack!” 

Jack looked properly cowed. Good. Carlie understood grief and running away and wallowing, but she meant every word about the absolute fury Ianto would have felt. 

“You loved him,” she said. “It must be terrible. To lose someone you loved so much, and know that’s not the only time you’ll experience that kind of heartbreak in your life. For your time to be together so short while beings like those monsters at the bottom of the trench get lifetimes. But Ianto would tell you he didn’t regret any of the time you did have. And you have to know that.” 

Jack was quiet again. The silence continued on. After far too long he added a shaky, “thank you.” 

Carlie sighed. “Sorry. I think I might have overstepped a bit.” 

“No. I needed to hear it. I’ve been...in a bit of a holding pattern lately with...everything. Since I left. It’s been too long.” 

“Jack — I’ve already overstepped far too much but, this hurt you’re feeling, use that. Go back to those loose ends, back to your rift...what you’re doing now, it’s not really living.” 

“Not really living...,” Jack just seemed lost in thought for a second. And then he seemed to realize something. “I think I need to go back to Cardiff. There’s...there’s something I need to take care of. A big loose end. Thanks, for the company. I needed this.” 

She watched as he walked out into the busy alley, his coat swaying in the doorway. 

“Goodbye Captain Jack Harkness,” she whispered out loud as he was gone. 

That night there was a ping on the Torchwood mainframe as Jack searched the words  _ The House of the Dead.  _


End file.
